


Prove that it never mattered, that you've forgotten its face, its name

by The_Opened_Door



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Opened_Door/pseuds/The_Opened_Door
Summary: How do you build a monster?Love a thing, and walk away.orJames knows a secret of John's, a secret John doesn't even know the whole of.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Comments: 11
Kudos: 61





	Prove that it never mattered, that you've forgotten its face, its name

**Author's Note:**

> How do you build a monster?  
> How do you build a nightmare, a phantom, a ghoul, a terror?
> 
> Step One:  
> Find it in the dark, trembling, begging, shying from touch and sound  
> Teach it your hand is the only kindness it will know  
> Show it you are the only protection, the only safety, the only home
> 
> Step Two:  
> Bring it to your bed, swaddled in furs and skins, warm for the first time  
> Calm it in the dark, dry its salt-stained tears on your hem  
> Let it howl at the moon, scream its grief through the night to the dawn
> 
> Step Three:  
> Feed it from your hands, blood-soaked bread, flesh cut from your hips  
> Help it grow strong, bright, bold, stretching to the light  
> Tease laughter from iron rusted lungs, a calcified throat, cracked teeth
> 
> Step Four:  
> Break off its leg, tear out its nails, cut out its tongue, hushing it all the while  
> Bandage the wounds with arsenic and lye, cauterizing it  
> Tell it that the enemies are at the door, driving your hands, pulling the noose
> 
> Step Five:  
> Thrust it into the world, pointed at your enemies, sharp, wild, fierce  
> Burn its room, smash its mirrors, its trinkets, its things  
> Prove that it never mattered, that you've forgotten its face, its name
> 
> How do you build a monster?  
> Love a thing, and walk away.

James took a breath.

"What would you do if you knew a thing about a person. Not a story, just a fact. But you knew that this thing was unbearable to that person, that they would rather no one know, that _they_ would rather not know. If you knew this thing, and you knew this person, what would you do?"

Silver — John, this man who was once a boy, was John — John looked up from the table. He was still smiling, but concern was showing through, slanting the smile into something else, something fearful.

"What are you on about? Or, I'm sorry, _who_ are you talking about?"

James could see the shift, the energy thrumming through John's eyes. His eyes were ever moving, settling on nothing for more than a moment, and now they are skittered over James' own face, his own eyes. They were the eyes of someone who slept lightly, who owned nothing worth keeping, ready to move, to run, to scurry into the underbrush as a fox pursued by the king's own hounds.

The ship was quiet, preternaturally so, the men either on the beach or somewhere far from the cabin. It was windless, and not even the rigging was speaking when it would normally chatter to James _'new ropes here, tension the stays there, check the lines'_. No moon should shine tonight, but thick heavy clouds had rolled in throughout the day, concealing the night even further.

A night designed for a confession, a night heavy with mercy and forgiveness.

John was motionless, a statue but for his eyes flitting. If James knew him less well, he would think John relaxed, splayed back in the chair opposite, his battered leg stretched to relieve the pressure on the badly treated stump.

James knew him well, however.

James took a breath.

"I only knew the Hamiltons for a year, give or take, before it all ended. But I knew them well, I'd like to think. Better than most at least."

He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, the table, twisting his rings through his fingers. John's expression changed, from fearful observance to something approaching love. Empathy and fondness and care.

"The length of time of such meetings is rarely as important as the meeting itself," John replied, slouching further into the chair.

"Yes. Yes. I believe - That is I think - What I mean to say is, that you would know that more than most anyone, wouldn't you?"

The fear was back in John's eyes, and James felt suddenly as if perhaps if John wasn't a fox at all, but a wolf cornered and dangerous, and perhaps James was the odd-hound-out, throat soon to be opened.

James took a breath.

"The Hamiltons married young, younger than most, but they were so in love with each other and the world around them. Their engagement was short, it startled both of their families how quickly they wanted to be wed." James smiled at the memory, recalling Miranda telling him this story over and over, remembered how quickly they fell in love with him and how quickly he reciprocated.

John moved slowly, pouring more wine into their cups, drinking from his own as he leaned forward on the table.

"I enjoy hearing you speak of them, the Lord and Lady Hamilton. They seemed exceptional in their capacity for love, their desire to see more love in the world." John laughed now, a soft, broken thing, fingers playing at the frayed end of a cuff, "It seems like, had they come to Nassau, they would have dragged everyone into civilization through the force of their love."

John looked up again, met James' eyes still smiling, that laugh still visible near his lips, like the route of a ship laid behind on a calm day. James looked at John, watched, committing this moment to memory, this moment that would be the last before all others.

James took a breath.

"They told a story, from early in their marriage. They always had that…capacity for love, always wanted to love as far and wide as possible. I'd like you to hear it." James shuffled forward, wanting to be as close to John as he could in this moment, their knees touching, faces close as lovers at a salon in Paris; proper, but intimate all the same. John leaned closer still, their elbows brushing at the table edge.

"Please do, you know how much I enjoy a story." John rested his chin on his hand, the one on the arm not brushing James' own. The fear that had lived in John's eyes now gripped James' own heart.

"They wanted children from the moment they were wed, a desperate desire for their love to be made manifest. Even when I met them, ten years after, they were still so hoping for that. Though, by that time, they were focused on me for some of that, companion dogs for other parts. A child…the concept abandoned them early on." James remembered the Spanish Gentle, Jack, they doted on, both Thomas and Miranda, as if it were their own child.

John moved, his hand resting atop James'; less proper, more intimate, his eyes roving across James' face, trying to catch the thread of the story.

"I don't…Miranda seemed easy with Abigail Ashe. She seemed comfortable, and kind." John's brow furrowed, his thumb trailing along the back of James' hand.

James took a breath.

"They could not have children of their own. I don't know why, or how. If it was nature, or punishment," John's hand held tighter to his own, not a hard grip, but an understanding, "but that was no deterrent for them. In their telling, it was a sign that their love was designed for someone who had been given little love, who would be given the most opportunity from that love."

John smiled, small but bright, "The more you speak of them, the more I find I wish I knew them."

James felt his own heart breaking, rending under the weight of memory and misstep. He turned his hand beneath John's, turning comfort to an embrace, knitting their fingers together.

"They went to an orphanage, in August 1695. St John's Home for Poor Orphan Boys, in London," John's fingers gripped tight, bruising and brutal. James held fast, the pain showing John was still here, that he hadn't left.

"They met a boy there, a boy they _never_ forgot, a boy they tried to find for years," John hadn't moved, was stock-still, a wolf caught between the hounds and a wall, the only options death or capture before death. "They described him to me, bright blue eyes, quick fingers - he plucked one of Miranda's earrings right off her ear and she didn’t notice - black curls as wild as a briar."

John's eyes were wide, wild, his breath coming in brief, hurried gasps. James wrapped his other hand around the ones entwined on the table. He could feel John's heartbeat, thready and quick, in his wrist, it felt like the heart was breaking, a line too taught between the mast and the bow, about to snap under the pressure.

"They spent an afternoon with the boy, and _God_ how they loved him. Miranda played with him, learned how he took her earring, while Thomas spoke to the owner of the outfit. They tried to pass on as much money as they could gather into his hands, but he refused to let them take the boy that day. I don’t know why, but they told the boy, Solomon, that they would be back the next day, first thing, at dawn to collect him. Miranda left him her earrings, both of them, they were her favourite pair and she told Solomon such."

James took a breath.

While he spoke, John had shifted forward, hand clenched around James' in a vice. His unoccupied hand fluttered over the table, to his face, to James, shaking viciously.

"When they returned the next day, the boy was gone. They searched throughout the district, the neighbouring districts, throughout London, and they couldn’t find Solomon. The orphanage said he'd run away, that he was a thief and a liar as it was, so they should be grateful to miss his harm. Thomas was furious, brought all of London down on the orphanage and had it shut within a month. Miranda, she kept looking. For months and years. Even when I met her, she was looking just in case she recognized the young man Solomon would be."

James stopped. That was the end of the story Miranda and Thomas told him. He knew they were haunted, he knew they never recovered from this. But they never told him more, they had hushed discussions and there were pained silences, but it was one piece of their lives he would not intrude into, and to which he was not invited.

John was still shaking, but he hadn't moved away. His heartbeat had steadied, his breathing evened. The hand not clutched in James' had moved to is pocket, and though James couldn't see what was he was touching, he knew John's hand was restless. James was caught between wondering what he was holding, and looking at the hand held in his own.

"They were pearls, and they matched the buttons on her dress, and her necklaces, and her rings, and her bracelets. I'd never seen a lady before, and I'd never seen jewelry so matched." John's voice startled James, dragging his eyes back up to John's face.

John pulled his hand out of his pocket, resting it closed on the table, palm up, fingers closed.

"She said she'd collect them, she _promised_ and I believed her. She held me in her lap, on her pretty dress, even though I must've been filthy. It was shiny, and smooth, and the darkest blue. I suppose it must have been a satin dress, or something similar. Then, I just knew it was softer than anything I'd ever touched, and I thought she must have been a queen."

John uncurled his fingers, slow as anything James had ever watched. Inside his palm were two dangling pearl earrings, one missing the lowermost pearl, the largest on that of the pair. They were otherwise pristine, clean and bright, no trace of the yellowish tarnish of pearls stored away.

"The orphanage, that place, was just the another of the seemingly unending miseries in my life, you have to understand, and that night gangpressers from the Navy came through, looking for older boys to take. I didn't realize that I was too young, that they wouldn’t take me, so I ran, I ran as far as I could and by the time I felt safe, by the time I thought I could go back, I realized I was in a part of London I didn't know, and I couldn't figure my way back."

The words had come out as a flurry, ever quicker until John was almost breathless. Tears were tracking down his face, and his eyes were red and hot.

"I thought…I thought they'd return the next day and see another boy, and they'd take him and forget me. I meant to sell the earrings, and I did sell the one pearl for passage on a barge to Bristol. But once I'd lost the one, I couldn’t part with the rest. I wanted to remember how it felt, that afternoon, to _be_ someone to someone."

John looked down again, at the earrings in his hand. He looked up again.

"Will you tell me more about them?"

James took a breath.


End file.
